End of Days: The Waking of Faith
by Blood Clover
Summary: Faith wakes from a coma to find the world has gone to hell. First Arc of a massive crossover series. (Currently including BtVS, Lost, and elements of Walking Dead.)
1. A Different World

Chapter 1

End Of Days: The Waking of Faith

Summary: Faith wakes from a coma to find the world has gone to hell. First part of a massive crossover series.

Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Angel, Joss does. AMC owns Walkers and The Walking Dead. ABC owns LOST.

Note: This is a rewrite of a story I posted long ago on another fic site.

Chapter One

And I looked and behold a pale horse,

and the man that sat on him was death.

And Hell followed with him.'

Sunnydale – June 9th, 2004 (5:37 pm)

If the blood splattered hospital hallways weren't an indication, Faith Lehane knew that something was terribly wrong as she stepped out the front doors of Sunnydale Memorial Hospital and took in the sight of the piles of human bodies and the dozens upon dozens of abandoned cars that littered the streets. Even as a slayer there was never a thought or expectation in her young mind that she would have ever had to deal with anything even remotely like this. Judging by the utter lack of life around the should-have-been well traversed streets, Faith was fairly sure she was very alone. It wasn't a good feeling.

She took a sweeping glance around the area as she slowly made her way down the small stairs that led down to the street, and quickly walked over to the nearest of the seemingly abandoned cars, quickly discovering that they weren't all as abandoned as they appeared, when as she reached into the backseat of the Buick through the open window did she see the dessicated corpse of the driver, slumped over the steering wheel.

Faith was no doctor, or even a medical student, but was fairly certain that the man had been dead for at least a month at the minimum, and that raised all sorts of questions in her mind. The first of which being how was she even alive, with anyone that may have survived whatever it was that had happened having seemingly fled quite some time ago, and no one checking her.

As she began to ponder the possibility that she actually was dead, and this was some kind of hell, brought on by her accidental murder of the deputy mayor, even if she'd pulled back from the dark side at the last moment to help save the life of her sister slayer Buffy's friend Xander, pushing him out of the way of the transformed mayor's heavy tail as it launched both her and that football jock Larry off the ground and that had been the last thing she remembered before waking up in the empty hospital.

Shrugging her wandering thoughts to the back of her mind, Faith tore her eyes away from the form of the dead man, then grabbed hold of the duffel bag by the handles and hauled it out of the car.

Quickly moving to the back of the car, she set the duffel atop the trunk and unzipped it before letting a relieved grin onto her face as she grabbed the oversized AC/DC t-shirt and replaced the hospital issue smock, letting the offensive smelling garb fall to the ground, carried slightly on a gust of wind to fall on the pavement a few feet from where she stood, and she pulled the tee down over her head to cover her nudity once more.

Doubting that she'd find pants that fit amongst the dead man's clothes, she quickly abandoned the bag filled with clothes as she spotted a cop car parked haphazardly on the corner, and began to make her way over.

Finding blood smeared on the exterior of the closed driver's side door, she takes another look around the area, some nagging buzz at the back of her mind screaming at her to run her ass off, away from what ever had caused all this.

She doubted it was the mayor, who'd have likely finished the job of killing her had he survived that day. Certainly she'd not have made it to the hospital and been giving a chance to survive her own injuries, not after her betrayal of the evil, yet doting politician.

Again she pushed the nagging thoughts and doubts down, feeling annoyed with herself for the inability to focus on the situation she currently found herself in. She lets out a couple deep breaths, attempting to center herself and at the same cursing herself silently for not having cared enough to pay attention to Giles as he'd tried to teach her and B the proper techniques.

Her right hand came up to the handle on the driver's side door of the police cruiser, pulling it up and opening the door. She leans into the car and begins fumbling with the lock on the plastic 'box' that held several police-issue Glocks and a shotgun, using the paperclip she found on the floor as she'd leaned in, to make short work of picking the padlock.

Normally she'd just use her slayer strength to simply rip the lock from the mechanism, but as she still felt the disorientation from however long she'd been comatose, she decided to just do things the normal way until the weakness and fatigue she felt went away. She hoped that it would just take a decent meal, and maybe a real night's sleep for her slayer healing to kick in and do its work properly.

She pushed open the lid of the plastic box, quickly grabbing the two smaller guns from the box and shoving them into the waistband of the thin cloth pants that were pulled with around her slim form so the guns wouldn't slip down, making sure that both were secure and then she grabbed the shotgun.

At the sound of a growl from behind her, she pulled back out of the car, and spun to face the seemingly dead woman that was hobbling towards where the slayer stood, her profile a truly gruesome sight, between the woman's half rotted flesh, the blood dribbling from her mouth and the pupil-less milky eyes.

Faith ponders running for half a second, leaving the apparent walking corpse to hobble off elsewhere, but is surprised into pulling the trigger on the shotgun, catching the zombie in the chest as it suddenly lunges at her, hands held out like talons in front of it, and bloody teeth bared and gnashing.

The blast met the zombie full on, exploding the ribcage and sending the walker to the ground, the impact of the shot launching it off its feet to land on it's back with a thump that echoes against the store fronts that lined the street ahead.

The dark slayer quickly reloads the chamber, her hand pulling the sliding piece of the shotgun back and then pushes it forward again to prime another shot, in the likely chance she'd need it.

Her eyes widen almost impossibly as the woman she had just blasted starts to pull itself up on it's useless legs, and then when that fails to work, begins crawling toward Faith, snarling and growling as it pulled itself along the concrete road.

Faith levels the shotgun at the zombie's head as she maneuvers her way around it, deciding at the last moment to save the remaining shotgun shells for the time being, and pulls out one of the handgun.

She clicks the safety off as she quickly comes up behind the downed zombie, pressing one foot into its back and pushing it down against the street before pressing the barrel of the glock in her hand to the back of it's skull and pulling the trigger.

Blood and viscera sprays in an outward arc from the front of the zombie's head, the being in question collapsing to the bloodstained pavement, not moving at all now.

"Hmmm." Faith muses as she takes another glance around the area, worried that the loud shots that were still ringing in her ears hadn't drawn any more of the creatures to her. "Guess Romero was right on a few things." She remarks to herself, deciding to take the opportunity to find a safe place to hide out for the night.

With the sun looking close to setting on the horizon, she didn't much like her chances of survival remaining out on the streets after darkness fell upon the town, things were dangerous enough in these parts, even without the added threat of zombies roaming around unfettered, and her desire to not become the victim of mindless cannibals.

Deciding to speed up her pursuit of finding a safe haven, she quickly returns to the cop car, quickly pulling the plastic covering off of the underbelly of the drivers side dashboard, quickly working to spark the engine to life by fiddling with the wires until she hears the telltale rumbling of the motor slowly coming to life.

She lets out a subdued cry of satisfaction as the rumbling turns into a light roar and smiles as she pulls the door shut, pressing her foot on the gas and pulling out onto the road, heading in the direction of Buffy's house on Revello drive.

She doubted that the Summers' would still be at their house given the apparent state of everything, but hoped that she'd find something that would give her a clue as to where B and the others had gone.

Provided, of course, that they'd even survived whatever it was that had happened here.

When she pulled the police cruiser to a stop at the curb in front of 1630 Revello drive, she realized that her doubts of Buffy and her family being long gone were proved to not be unfounded, the overgrown grass in the front yard of the house, as well as those of the neighboring houses, and the lack of Joyce Summers' car parked in the driveway. It was clear that much like the center of town, everyone had fled from this neighborhood too or if there was someone hiding away around here, they weren't making any effort to reveal themselves to her.

Faith sits in the black and white for several long moments, her gaze just locked upon the overgrown front yard of the Summers' residence. Internally her mind was in a war with itself as she debated whether to stay for the night to search the house for some clue as to what had occurred exactly that the only moving things she'd come across so far had been zombies. Also the chance that something inside might give her an idea as to where Buffy and everyone else had gone, if they were even still alive.

Finally the once Dark Slayer makes up her mind and cautiously gets out of the vehicle. Without pause she also grabs both the shotgun, and a couple of pistols in a duffel that had been laying upon the passenger seat. Then she crosses the yard, holding onto the weapon with purpose as her gaze flickered about, on the watch for any sign of further undead that might be lurking about. Thankfully the area seems to be clear and soon enough Faith is letting herself through the unlocked front door and then closing and locking it behind her.

Turning around once inside, the slayer takes a cautious look about the entryway, worried that making noise would draw the attention of zombified versions of the Summers family on the fear and chance that they had gotten caught up in turning into one of the monsters as well. She prayed things wouldn't turn out that way.

"H-hello? Is... is anyone here?" Faith finally calls out with audible hesitance, her body tensing even as the words come out of her mouth and her grip on the shotgun tightens as she instinctually prepares for the chance of a zombie coming out from somewhere.

The next couple moments are agonizingly long and Faith felt full of nervous energy as she waits and finally realizes that she was truly alone, that neither living nor dead were nearby. She's a bit relieved for that, still unsure of where she stood with Buffy and the others but certainly not wanting them dead. That had not been part of the plan they'd cooked up to fool the mayor.

She shakes herself out of her thoughts after a moment and then slowly moves through the house on a sweep to fully ensure the safety and security of the house if she decided to remain for a day or two to make sure she was in fighting shape after what she assumed must have been a lengthy coma. After a few minutes of searching, the slayer deems the house clean and ends up in the kitchen before making her way out to the small back yard.

What she finds there makes her heart drop into her stomach and slowly Faith makes her way over to the grave markers. As she sees the names carved on the crudely constructed wooden crosses, a bit of relief fills her at the same time as sorrow as none of the names were of the Scoobies she knew. There was Anya, Caridad, Kennedy and Andrew in the row of four, none of whom she could recall having known or even met in passing.

'How long have I been out, for fuck's sake?' The slayer ponders silently to herself, in the privacy of her own mind and certainly not expecting an answer. So it's not much of a shock when she doesn't get one.

She remains in the yard for several further long moments and then following another sweeping glance about her surroundings, Faith makes her way back across the yard and into the house again. She makes quick work of locking up all entryways and then heads upstairs to the second floor to claim one of the bedrooms for the night at least.

Choosing Buffy's with little thought or pause, Faith rests the shotgun against the wall and climbs into the bed. Within a couple minutes, she's fallen back into sleep with ease.

Her dreams however, are anything but easy.

To be continued...


	2. Gifts & A Letter

Chapter Two

i"What am I doing here?" Faith thought aloud as she looked up from where she sat among the sea of empty folding chairs set up for the 1999 Sunnydale High graduation ceremony. For a moment the sun hanging behind the raised platform for the speakers is too bright and she holds her hand up in front of her eyes. After a short moment her vision clears enough with the bright sun now blocked out, and she can see that the platform is also unoccupied.

"That's the question everyone asks." Faith's eyes go wide as she heard the voice of Joyce Summers speak up from behind her and the once dark slayer whips around to face the mother of her one-time rival. "Hello Faith. Lovely day, isn't it?"

Faith barely had time to scream then as the motherly and compassionate features of Joyce Summers fade away before her eyes, and in horror she watches as Joyce turns to rot in front of her before the facsimile of Mama Summers speaks again.

"From beneath you, it devours." The creature hisses and then Faith screams out in panic and then pain as it suddenly lunges at her and the slayer could feel teeth sink into her flesh and tear viciously at her./i

Faith wasn't overly surprised when she awoke to find the moon still fairly high in the night sky, catching sight of it as she sat up and then moved to the bed's edge. For a moment the slayer finds herself searching the hospital sweats that she was still wearing for a pack of cigarettes on instinct before remembering that she didn't have a pack on her. With a sigh she let her hands fall to her sides, and just stares blankly out at the moon.

Internally Faith wonders what she was going to do with the coming morning, and also fights back the urge to go out hunting. The game had changed, that much was clear and it seemed that these zombies had put fear into the local demon population as well as the humans, taking note now that she'd not sensed a single one at any point since waking up in the hospital hours before. It was a bit disconcerting but even now as she thought about it. If all of the demons had run scared, then maybe it would be best that she got as far away from the hellmouth with whatever this was. What real chance did she have of lasting here alone anyways?

Faith has no answers to any of the questions but knew one thing for certain, she could not stay here long. There had to be others that had survived somewhere, and Faith intended to find them. Still craving a cigarette badly, she lets out a sigh and climbs back into the bed, burying herself in the sheets as she goes back to her tumultuous dream state.

She wakes up several more times over the next couple hours in waiting for the sun to finally come up, and as it's rays finally begin to filter through the window, Faith is up and moving with no hesitation. Quickly stripping out of the hospital clothes until Faith was clad in just the underwear at her waist, she then enters into Buffy's bedroom closet and allows herself a small grin at finding that the a good amount of other slayer's clothes had been taken, but not all. It was a good indication that the blonde was still alive, or had been following the start of this whole thing, whatever it ended up being in the end. Quickly shifting through what was availiable, Faith found a red loose t-shirt and a pair of leather pants and pulled them onto herself with haste. Then she made short work of grabbing up a duffel from the floor at the back and grabbed a couple outfits worth of changes of clothes, stuffing them into the bag with little care.

Once finished, the 'dark' slayer departs from the bedroom entirely and does a quick search of the other upstairs rooms for anything useful left behind with minimal result of good fortune.

It's only when she gets back downstairs and is standing in the living room that Faith's luck changes as she kicks open the 'coffee-table' chest in the middle of the couches, not having noticed it the night before for what it was. The padlock comes off easy enough and Faith crouches down on the edge of the couch as her fingers make quick work of getting the large, crate-like chest open. As the lid clears the end of the hinge and hangs over the back end, the last called slayer lets her eyes drop down upon the contents of the chest.

Her eyes widen for a brief moment as she stares down upon the envelope with her name printed boldly upon it for a long moment before her hand finally shoots out in a near blur to grab it up, and she quickly tears the letter free from within, unfolding it in a rush before her eyes begin to read through. She takes immediate note of the text being in Buffy's handwriting and tenses slightly as she clears the 'dear Faith' heading.

iHey Faith,

I really hope that this letter somehow finds it's way to you and finds you well and able, awake finally from the coma and hopefully able to survive this awful new world we find ourselves forced to live in. Unfortunately this time it really is our fault.. well mine. I accept that you can't be blamed for your unknowing part in it.

It... It got really bad a bit back Faith, The First Evil had been hunting down our sisters, the ones waiting to be called. So I did something insane and with Willow's help, activated every potential slayer in the world and gathered about three hundred to take the fight to the first and about twenty thousand of it's Turok Han.

Except that that was exactly what the First wanted us to do, and our epic battle was a completely staged farce on us by the First. See, the Turok Han were actually the containers of the plague that now ravages the world... and it got out because of us.

Because we killed them. Giles called it years ago when we started this whole bullshit, the world is doomed.

But we've all decided to keep the fight and try to somehow fix things, and have contacted a couple friends from the military about lending our aid. From what I understand, we'll be heading to Los Angeles soon so please if.. when you find this, come find us.

I have also left several useful gifts here as you can see or will see in a moment, they should help to take down the biters and any unfriendlies that you might happen to come across. Xander keeps reminding me to add that, not everyone is so much of the good anymore and those that were bad before are a lot worse now, so be wary of other survivors.

Anyways, everyone else says hi, and thanks to a little bit of magic from Willow this letter is charmed to track the time of certain things as seen below.

I pray that we meet again, good luck Faith.

~~The current date is June 10th, 2004 and it is five thirty-six in the morning.~~

~~The plague started on May 28th, 2003 and this letter was written on August 4th of the same year.~~/i

Past that was just blank paper and Faith quietly refolded it and set it upon the couch cushion next to her. For a long moment, the slayer is rigidly still as tries to reconcile the fact that she had been comatose for the better part of five years, and no longer was she a teenager even, but twenty-one, no twenty-two now. And had somehow survived on hospital machines for over a year without humans She then turns her gaze back upon the other contents of the chest, picking up a long.. thing wrapped in a blanket and quickly pulls the blanket outward to reveal quite an odd weapon that seemed to be axe, sword and pike all in one, along with a notecard that had '2nd gen Scythe - Faith's. Made by WR.' written upon it.

Wrapping her hands around the handle, Faith let out a gasp as she felt sudden reinvigoration fill her as she seems to feel herself become almost one with this weapon she held for the briefest of moments. It was almost as if she was Harry-fucking-Potter with the wand thing from that movie and she debates for a second to throw the weapon away from herself but refrains as it also fills her with a sense of calm and peace like she couldn't remember feeling before. It was clear that like the card said, it had been made for her specifically. She sends up a silent thanks to the witch, wherever she was now.

She takes the 'scythe' and rests it on the floor, leaning upon the couch at an angle to keep it from falling off or over, Faith then takes notice of the final contents, which appeared to be a combat suit of a certain 'thrown-together' design, but as Faith pulled out the vest and camos, she could see the obvious alterations for weapons of her style to be attached securely, including a 'sheath' of sorts for the scythe on the back of the vest.

'Must have used magic to get my sizes.' Faith muses to herself as she adds the combat garb over her other borrowed clothes.

Once fully dressed up, Faith makes a quick search of the first floor for further supplies of use, finding a few cans of food that were still within good use, the expiration date still a couple months off. There wasn't much else, and the slayer returned to the living room. She grabbed up the scythe and stuck it in the holster at her back, then the letter as well which she stuffed into one of the pockets of her vest.

Finally she grabs up her shotgun and slowly makes for the front door, stopping in the foyer for a moment, pausing at the door before opening it to leave. Faith stares for a moment and then pulled out the flip knife from the vest, another smaller gift hidden within, and then carves into the door, 'Faith was here. June04. Heading to LA'.

Then she's gone, running down out the front yard to the cop car and jumping in, and a few moments later Faith is speeding away to whatever awaits her beyond Sunnydale.

To Be Continued...


	3. First Contact

Waking of Faith

Chapter 3

It hadn't been long after clearing the Sunnydale city limits and getting onto the desert highway that Faith encountered her first problem with the travel route she'd chosen, as about two and a half miles out the once dark slayer finds herself forced to brake to a stop. There were 'abandoned' vehicles scattered everywhere, the road a near gridlock for as far as she could see upon getting out of the police car. By the look of the smashed up cars and trucks at her end of the line, a handful of independent accidents made it clear what had occurred here.

Traffic had clearly been backed up to a near gridlock and the zombies had overtaken the jam somehow. It was clear that some of the living had managed to flee, probably back toward town, and she doubted that every single person from this ill-fated exodus could been killed with the lack of hundreds, maybe thousands of remains. However Faith doesn't much want to think of what might have happened to those that did get away since then. It would just make the wondering if she was the last person on Earth all the more agonizing until she managed to find other survivors.

As Faith moved from one side of the road to the other to look off down the road on both side, she quickly came to realize that between the limited space left both on the road and shoulder by the mess of cars, and the ditches at either side, the cop car was seemingly going to be of no further use to her. Truth was Faith had immediate started wishing that she had chosen a plainer vehicle as by making use of the police car, the slayer figured she ran a risk of having an automatic target on her head should she encounter unfriendly survivors. Hopefully she could find a vehicle of some working order when she reached the other end of the mess of 'abandoned' vehicles.

With a low sigh at the thought of the likely miles long trek that lay ahead of her, Faith slowly returns to the cop car to retrieve her duffel and weapons, also taking the portable short-wave and stuffing it into her bag as well. The slayer then backs away, giving the police car one last look and then a feral grin before kicking out and knocking the driver's side door nearly off it's hinges. She laughs a little as it just hangs there, relieved that her full slayer strength seemed to have finally returned, which would be of no small aid in ensuring her continued survival.

Quickly tying her scythe secure against her back, Faith shifts the shotgun in her hands to hold it at the ready as she began to move alongside the congested highway. The last thing she intended to do was to let her guard down and have a random zombie pop out from behind one of the vehicles and bite her. There was no way in hell she was going to let herself turn into one of those... things.

For the next several hours, the displaced Bostonian trudges onward without major incident, travelling across a good twelve to fifteen miles at Faith's best guess. A half dozen times or so along the way she had encountered an errant biter or two milling about in varying states of decay.

As the sun begins to dip in the sky, Faith decided it would be best to find 'residence' for the night, and after a short bit more walking, the slayer comes to a stop upon reaching a van that had been driven down into the ditch and gotten stuck sideways, the tires sunken halfway into the loose sand. Something about the vehicle seemed familiar and even a bit inviting, and Faith wastes little time lowering herself down into the ditch and pulling open the sliding door at the van's midsection.

As she climbs inside and pulls the door shut behind her, Faith fails to take note of the trail of parted grass she'd left in her wake climbing down the hill, having assumed that the overgrowth would bounce back. She spends the next hour picking at the contents of a can of peaches that she had removed from the pantry at the Summers' house, and watches the moon rise through the customized skyroof overhead. Within another hour, she has fallen into an uneasy sleep upon the couch, her shotgun and scythe laying on the floor. The nightmares are lesser, but not gone.

When Faith awoke the next morning, she quickly came to the realization that she was not alone and upon the second outcry from up upon the hill, the slayer realized that the first yell must have been what had roused her from her slumber.

"I said, 'Is there someone alive down in there?!" The slayer blinked a couple of times, hesitant to speak on the chance that the speaker might be one of the outright unfriendlies that the letter from the Scoobies had made reference to as a warning. Then her eyes go wide at hearing the words the decidedly female voice calls out next. "Hell with it, s'gotta be a walker. Probably got trapped inside there by one of the passerbys from week before last. Just light it up and we'll keep looking for whoever it was shooting last night."

Faith heard a gun cocking, a few even, and finds herself yelling out in protest before she realized what she was doing even, still caught up in a want to just go back to sleep. "No! Don't shoot nothing, I ain't a zombie, or walker, whatever the hell you want to call those goddamn things!"

"Who the hell are you, and why didn't you answer me the first damn time? You looking to get shot?" The same voice yells back.

"I was sleeping goddamn it, alright?!" Faith yells back, pulling herself up off the couch and moving forward and low to crouch by the window on the sliding door, trying to get a look at whoever was standing upon the hilltop and how many of them there where, all while trying to remain out of their direct sight. From her limited vantage point, the slayer could see four figures atop the hill. Two were male, two were female and all were armed. But what caught her attention was the mirror image of the scythe left to her by Buffy, only this one colored red and silver and the blade of which was peeking out from behind the red haired girl who looked to be at least a few years younger than herself. As short a time as Faith had to study the girl, it was easy to discern that they were both the same, the other girl just as much a slayer as she herself was.

"Okay, well we aren't looking to cause you harm unless you choose to come at us in a threatening manner." One of the men speaks up, and Faith's gaze flickers away from the younger slayer to the man that had spoken, a long haired, biker looking type with a gun grasped tight in either hand. Her gaze then drifts over the last two, the second man looking to be related to the first, but with shorter and lighter hair, and an inch or two shorter. The last woman, obviously the first one to have spoken, is a Latino woman that looks to be at least a few years older than Faith, and dressed in a police uniform.

The cop, or cop-impersonator speaks up as the long haired man goes silent, clearly taking charge as the apparent leader of the small group. "We're not looking to kill you, but you need to throw any weapons you might have out where we can see them and then come out slowly. If you've been bitten, we're also going to have problems, just to be up front about things, kapiesh?"

Faith was fairly certain that baring the redheaded slayer, that she could take down the four with relative ease and take their stuff, and maybe once upon a time she would have done just that. She wasn't a stranger to killing, though it left her feeling hollow inside afterward, not something Faith particularly enjoyed.

She wanted to be better.

To be good.

"Alright! I'm five by five with that!" Faith calls out with little pause, not wanting the four survivors outside to cut their risk factor and start firing upon the van. She reaches over to the handle of the sliding door and pulls it open a foot or so, then leans over toward the other side of the van to grab her shotgun and scythe. "And I ain't been bit, so don't freakin' shoot me!"

She tosses the gun out first, hearing the crunch of it falling upon the tall grass loud in her ears, heightened senses being one of the many perks of being a slayer. Faith takes more care with her giving up of her scythe, standing up first and leaning forward slightly to hold it out of the gap, blade first and in clear view, knowing that the redhead at least would know what it was and what Faith having possession of it meant. The Boston native continues to press out further and then drops the magical weapon to the ground.

As she pulls her hand back into the 'safety' of the van's interior, Faith could hear the gasp of surprise from the redhead, and then finally her voice as she speaks up.

" Stand down guys, she's like me. A slayer, ain't know way she'd have that blade otherwise, let alone possess the ability to handle it if she wasn't." The redhead says to the other three, and almost like that Faith can feel the mood change as the tension seems to instantly disappate with the younger slayer's word. "Come out sister, you have nothing to fear from us."

Faith hesitates for a couple long moments and then decides to take the plunge in showing trust to her fellow slayer and the redhead's friends. She pulls the door open to allow the four of them a full view of her finally, and slowly steps down and out of the van, keeping her hands in plan view on the chance that one of the gun-toting survivors standing above her had itchy fingers.

As she looks back up again once her feet were back on the ground, Faith finds the redhead has adopted a bit of a gobsmacked look, and then her eyebrow lifts as a mix of surprise and curiosity as the redhead stumbles a bit in trying to get her next words out.

"You... You're Faith Lehane!" The younger slayer cries out, and Faith gives a slow nod, not sure how the hell the girl would possibly know her on sight but not verbally questioning it. "We need to get you back to the mine, an old friend has been waiting on you to wake up and find us... I'm Vi by the way, come on and get up here so we can get home."

Faith's interest was definitely piqued as she quickly collected her weapons and then her duffel still in the van. Quickly she hurries herself up the hill to join Vi and the other three at the top.

Several minutes later, the dark slayer is sitting in between Vi and the cop in the back of a jeep that the long haired male is, freeriding across the open desert in the general direction of Los Angeles, but Faith doubts that the city was going to be their destination. She had other concerns in any case, her thoughts consumed with what awaited her when they arrived at the 'mines', and wondering about the identity of the friend she had there, since Vi seemed as if she was going to keep it a surprise for her.

Only Faith really hated surprises.

To be continued...


	4. The Ride Home

Chapter 4:

It hadn't taken very long before Faith began to feel restless and a growing bit of frustration over wanting to know who it was exactly that awaited her at the mine that had been mentioned but not explained by Vi. With a bit of effort she forces herself into a calm, still feeling like an emotional teenager despite now being twenty-two. The slayer knew full well she would have to adapt and catch up quick if she was going to have any chance at surviving this, not to mention helping these people, and her sister slayer.

Letting out a muted sigh, Faith allows her awareness to return and for the first time, the still-recovering slayer takes notice of the odd vibes she was getting from the pair of apparent brothers in the driver and passenger seats. She also glanced at the Latino woman for a brief moment, and aside from the bit of unease Faith feels creeping on her over the fact that the woman was a cop, she didn't seem to be anything more than a mere human.

"So, uh.. You guys all been together this whole time?" the slayer finally speaks up, breaking the mildly uneasy silence inside the car and drawing the attention of the others to her all at once.

"At the mines?" Vi questions in reply, the redhead giving Faith a sideways glance as she spoke, and the raven haired slayer gives a nod. "Not the whole time, no. We've sort of filtered in over the past ten months, started off with a bunch of Sunnydale refugees, but most of them left or got bit since then. Buffy didn't want to have the new slayers all condensed in one area when the world needs us, now maybe more than ever."

The redhead pauses for a moment, motioning with her hand at the pair of brothers in the front so Faith could see. "The Foley's here, James and Phillip joined us about six months ago, along with the Fitzpatricks, all of them are werewolves."

Faith's gaze shifted between the two men as both seemed to shift with a bit of nervous tension, and then Phillip turns back to give a faux-glare back at Vi for a moment before he suddenly adopts a light grin and shakes his head.

"Probably different to any werewolves you might have encountered in the past Lass." The sandy haired Foley tells Faith as he gives her a once-over that she is fully aware of him doing. Rather than tell him to knock it off, Faith opts to simply give him a smirk. There wasn't much of her.. more appealing parts visible anyways with the armor she wore. "Willow Rosenberg did our kind a lot of good before she..."

Phillip trails off suddenly and Faith looks from him to Vi after a moment, catching a seemingly silent conversation occuring between the red slayer and the wolf.

"We're not going to discuss Willow right now, it's too damn early to dredge all that up." Vi intones, in a dark tone that Faith wouldn't have expected from the fox-faced and up-till-now bubbly girl, though then again Faith barely knew the other slayer so she isn't overly surprised that her first impression might have been a bit off.

"Right." Phillip replies in a more subdued tone. "Anyways, when the walkers first started popping up, [i]She[/i] and a few of the witches in the area got the idea that werewolves with control would stand a better chance of survival and also be of help in ensuring humanity's continued survival in the world as it is now."

Faith was silent for a moment, and then speaks up. "Meaning what, exactly?" The dark slayer inquires, her gaze shifting from Phillip to James as the latter picks up where his brother left off.

"Meaning that those affected by the curse that were within the radius of the spell can now change at will with the human mind remaining in control." The driver of the car replies, giving a brief glance back to Faith through the rearview mirror. "As far as we know, with the amount of firepower the witches had behind them, might encompass the entirety of the country if not further."

"Wow." Faith replies with no small amount of shock that Willow had gotten so powerful. "I missed a lot..."

"Well you're back now and alive, every day we're still breathing is a good thing." Vi cuts in as Faith trails off, and the raven haired slayer turns to look over at the redhead, finding her with a small smile once again before the younger slayer speaks again. "Anyways, the nice police lady on your other side is Ana-Lucia Cortez, formerly of the LAPD. She and a couple refugees from the city found us about five weeks ago after their camp was attacked by DuLac's raiders."

"Managed to take out all of the bastards that he sent, but all but a handful of my group were killed in the process and the motel that we'd fortified got burned down." Ana Lucia says in explanation, and Faith took note of the bitter tone in the cop's voice.

"Who is Dulac?" Faith asks, hating suddenly that there was so many questions that she had to ask, with three new ones popping up for every one she did.

There is silence in the car for several long moments, the only noise being the rumble of the engine as James continued to drive in the direction of the mine, and Faith glances at each of the other occupants with a confused look on her face.

"He's..." Vi finally speaks but then trails off for a moment, seemingly trying to find the right words. "He's someone that we used think was a friend... Until it was discovered that he'd been working with the First Evil the entire time. He killed four people and slipped away before we could stop him. After that we decided that Sunnydale was no longer safe, and came to the mines, about eight months ago."

"The graves behind Buffy's house." Faith says in realization, drawing a sharp look from Vi who then gives a tight nod.

"Yeah." the younger slayer confirms verbally and then looks away from Faith to glance out the front. "We're almost home." She adds, her words serving as a distraction to the Boston native as Faith turns away to look out the front again, taking sight of the fenced off group of buildings up ahead in the distance. It was built up against a large hill that Faith suspected the mine was built into, and the fence travelled all the way up to the top of the hill before circling around to come down on the other side. It looked pretty well fortified for the chance that the zombies might show up en-mass. Against them, Faith was fairly certain it would hold, but against invaders of the demon, or human kind if this Du'Lac guy was a real problem, she was less sure.

"I picked one hell of a time to wake up, huh?" The raven haired slayer remarks to no one in particular as she leans back into her seat and then falls silent, keeping her gaze upon the enclosure they were closing in on.

A few minutes later, James was pulling the car to a stop at the closed gates, and as Faith watches from her spot in the middle of the backseat, the driver picks a walkie-talkie up off the seat and into view as he holds it to his mouth and speaks.

"Nate, Shane, whoever's on gate duty open up." The older of the Foley brothers orders into the reciever, and a couple moments later, Faith watches as the gate begins to pull to the side along the metallic track. James drives the car past the fence and then pulls to the side to park among a small grouping of other vehicles. "Home sweet home, eh?" The driver speaks up again, and Faith gives him a look for a moment and then a slight nod before everyone begins to get out of the car.

"Come on Faith," Vi tells her, giving a slight nod. "Got someone who'll want to be seeing you, probably waiting by now."

Seeing little reason not to go along with the redhead slayer's suggestion, Faith falls into step behind the younger woman, the pair of them heading up the hill to the main grouping of buildings as the Foley brothers and Ana Lucia go off to do their own thing. The dark slayer just hoped that whoever this secret old friend is, was truly a friend and not one of her many enemies pretending to be.

All she could do at this point though was to wait and see.

To Be Continued...

Author's Note: This chapter brings a Lost char officially into the mix, being as with the plague kicking off in 2003, the doomed flight from Austrailia to Los Angeles will never happen. The Foley brothers are of my creation, and in this are represented by James Duval (James) and Tom Guiry (Phillip).


End file.
